diff --git a/test/TEST-36-NUMAPOLICY/test.sh b/test/TEST-36-NUMAPOLICY/test.sh
index f1c36b3d6b..fddd5b6727 100755
--- a/test/TEST-36-NUMAPOLICY/test.sh
+++ b/test/TEST-36-NUMAPOLICY/test.sh
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ TEST_NO_NSPAWN=1
 . "${TEST_BASE_DIR:?}/test-functions"
 
 if qemu_min_version "5.2.0"; then
-    QEMU_OPTIONS="-object memory-backend-ram,id=mem0,size=512M -numa node,memdev=mem0,nodeid=0"
+    QEMU_OPTIONS="-object memory-backend-ram,id=mem0,size=${QEMU_MEM:?QEMU_MEM is unset} -numa node,memdev=mem0,nodeid=0"
 else
     QEMU_OPTIONS="-numa node,nodeid=0"
 fi